


The Pizza Run

by TheSpasticFantastic



Series: A Tale of Two Cities [2]
Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Asexuality, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:42:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27005269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpasticFantastic/pseuds/TheSpasticFantastic
Summary: Elsa is in the mood for pizza.  Alarik goes and gets her some.  Centered around their first time being intimate together, but that’s all off-screen.
Relationships: Elsa/Alarik
Series: A Tale of Two Cities [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815652
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	The Pizza Run

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thank you so much to @fericita-s for beta reading this and to @patricia-von-arundel for creating Alarik. For the amazing most recent chapter of @couragedontdesertme ‘s City of Ice!

Elsa hadn’t been lying to Anna that day on campus when Alarik had happened upon them having lunch. She wasn’t looking for a relationship. She was perfectly content to enjoy her own company in the evenings. To spend her nights alone. When she yearned for companionship, she could call her mother to discuss her feelings, her father to discuss history or current events, or Anna to talk about anything under the sun. She had a handful of friends, scattered across the country now that they were in their mid-20s, but who were always willing to pick up their phone or answer her texts.

And as for a physical relationship . . .

Well, that had never been a problem for her. Her mother teased her sometimes, not often and never without a great deal of love, that she must be a foundling if she hated hugging so much. But even more – Elsa had never craved physical contact in a sensual way. In high school, during sex ed classes, she had been half-convinced that it was all some elaborate hoax that people played into because she had certainly never felt a “fire” or a “burning” passion. When she thought of desire, it was what she felt for chocolate or pizza or a new book. Not another person.

This had led to some problems in high school and college.

“It’s simple - If you don’t like boys, then you’re a lesbian.” One of her friends had told her and then set her up with an acquaintance from their programming class. Their date had been awkward, but only because Elsa had not been blessed with her sister’s social graces. When Denise had ended the evening with a simple kiss, Elsa had felt the same thing she had always felt with the boys in high school. Nothing.

Denise had broken the kiss and laughed. “I don’t think you’re gay.”

“I’m sorry.” She had apologized with her hands clenched at her side, her face burning. “I just – I don’t feel anything with anyone.”

“So you’re Ace?”

“I’m - what?”

Which was how she had learned about asexuality. It was like a lightbulb turning on. It was freeing. She wasn’t broken. There was nothing wrong with her. This wasn’t a side effect of her mental health struggles. She was just on a certain end of the spectrum of sexual drive. Denise had lifted a huge weight off her shoulders that Elsa hadn’t even been entirely aware she had been carrying.

Anna had been skeptical, the idea of not finding pleasure through touch was so foreign to her that she confessed she didn’t understand it, but promised to learn and be supportive. Her mother had been remarkably receptive when Elsa told her and began reading what few medical studies existed. She had never discussed it with her father. The last thing she needed was him making a joke about her impregnating herself. And he would. He would make that joke.

But knowing what asexuality was – being able to identify as one – that was liberating.

It also considerably simplified her dating life in college.

“I’m not interested in a sexual relationship.” Had become an excellent way to weed out the ones who were just looking for a good time. She hadn’t gone to college to experiment. She had gone to college to get an education. Being upfront about her lack of interest in a physical relationship sent most of them running. Although there had been some hiccups.

The soft-spoken journalism major in her sophomore year, for example. Who had sworn up and down that not having sex was totally fine. And things were fine. For one month.

“My therapist says that you refusing to have sex with me is really manipulative.”

It took Elsa about thirty seconds to recover her ability to speak after that little declaration, but once she found her voice, she ended the relationship. And there had been a handful of others, over the years, some who she had even slept with because she was bored or wanted to show them affection and for her partner to be happy or wanted to get out of her head for fifteen minutes – but never because of the primal reasons that she had heard her friends or her sister talk about wanting to sleep with someone.

Besides, most of the time she just liked to be alone. Which was something else altogether.

So when Alarik came along, she figured that he would be like any other of her male friends who showed interest over the years. It was true she enjoyed his company, and he seemed to enjoy hers, but it was nothing serious and she wouldn’t fool herself otherwise. Even when he finally, haltingly, asked her out on a date, she was as honest with him as she had been with every other prospective partner since she was nineteen.

“I’m asexual, Alarik. I want to be honest with you. I don’t know that we’ll ever . . .you know, be with one another.”

“But . . .we could be with one another for dinner?” He had seemed so earnestly perplexed that she had laughed. And agreed to dinner. They had already shared several meals by then, but only lunch and always with Anna. And it was nice, but she wondered when he would lose interest in his unanticipated celibacy. They had already known one another for several months and she knew he wouldn’t be the kind of man to pressure her or passive-aggressively whine about his frustrations.

Alarik was consistent in asking for her consent for simple things. He sought her permission before he took her hand, before he hugged her, before he initiated the kind of kisses that she knew her sister would dismiss as “not really a kiss”. The first time she spent the night at his apartment she had fallen asleep on the couch while doing research for a client and woke with a light blanket draped over her and breakfast waiting. The first time he had spent the night at hers, she had invited him to sleep in the bed and dozed off while reading with her head against his chest.

“It doesn’t bother you?” She asked, hesitantly, over a meal of noodles. They were sitting cross-legged on the floor of her tiny studio apartment. She had loved its minimalist functionality, but with as often as Alarik spent time there now it was starting to feel too small. A sliver of worry worked its way through her gut. Things were going well, weren’t they? She didn’t want to upset the relationship, but she didn’t want him to be silently miserable either.

“I’m happy with us as we are. Right now.” He smiled before taking a bite of his Pad Thai. “Aren’t you?”

“I am.” 

She was. He was easy to be around. Even when he was at her place and they were elbow to elbow at the lone, small table, laptops touching and moving one another’s notebooks to get to their own, Alarik was never obtrusive. She got out of her apartment more if only because she was going to see him. When she burrowed away with work, he would come over with food and news from the outside world and the occasional note or small gift from her mother.

Several months after they had been with one another for dinner, Elsa found herself lounging on the sofa in his living room. Alarik was walking back and forth, hands in his pockets, working out some issue with an experiment in his head. His roommate, Bolin, was gone for the weekend, visiting friends in Baltimore. Watching him pace, running his hand absentmindedly through his mop of curls while chewing his lower lip as he did while solving a particularly complex problem, Elsa felt a warm wave of affection flood her chest. She tossed the book she had been reading onto the coffee table.

“Do you want to have sex?”

“Hm?” He mumbled, distracted, before faltering mid-step and spinning to look at her. “Do – do _I_ want to have sex?” He sputtered. He blinked a few times and regarded her cautiously. “Do . . . _you_ want to have sex?”

She shrugged, feeling a faint flush rise in her cheeks. “We can. If you want to, I mean.”

“Um.” He swallowed.

“I’m sorry.” She sat up and clasped her hands in her lap. “I wasn’t trying to make things awkward.”

“No – no, not awkward!” He cocked his head. “Well, maybe a little, but a _good_ awkward.” He walked over to the couch and dropped next to her, still maintaining an inch between them. “Um. I mean, if you want to then I’m totally willing. I just – I meant what I said when I said things were fine between us. I don’t want you to feel pressured.”

“You don’t make me feel pressured, Alarik.” She reached out and took his hand, tracing her fingers along his palm. “I’m offering.”

“Ok,” he gulped. “But, uh, don’t you want to – you know, make it special?”

“Make it special?”

“Like with rose petals or a weekend away or something?”

“What? No! Why?” She frowned. “Unless you do?”

“No, I’m fine with whatever you want!”

“I . . .I could go for some pizza?” Elsa said uncertainly. It was nearly dinner. And she didn’t feel like cooking or going out to eat. Alarik kissed her hand and hastily stood up.

“You want some pizza? I’ll get you some pizza! Alfonso’s? Half pineapple and half cheese steak?”

“Sounds perfect.”

She showered while he was gone and by the time he returned, had tamed her damp hair back into a braid and put on one of his old Mathlete shirts and a pair of her jeans she had left in his dresser a few weeks before. He grinned when he saw her and offered her a thin, brown paper bag as he balanced the pizza box in his other hand.

“Wine? You got wine to go with pizza?” She laughed. He blushed.

“I just thought it was fitting for the occasion.”

“You’re sweet.”

“I also got, um, protection.”

“Alarik.” She smiled at him fondly as she put the bottle into the refrigerator. “I know you’ve been tested and I have an IUD.” She grabbed two mis-matched plates from the cabinet and brought them to the table. He was already blotting the excess grease off the pizza with a paper towel. “But that was thoughtful of you.”

They sat to eat their dinner together and talk about nothing of any particular importance. A movie they had watched the previous week. Anna’s latest theory on who would win a particular reality show. Why Bolin had hoarded fifteen cases of blue LEGO bricks in his closet. And then dinner was over with the remaining slices wrapped in tinfoil and stowed away for tomorrow’s lunch and they wandered into his bedroom. She had spent the night so many times she had lost count at this point, comfortably wrapped in his blankets, feeling him breathe next to her.

Alarik hovered close, hands in his pockets, color in his cheeks as he gazed at her.

“How do you want to do this?” He asked huskily.

“Let’s start with what we know,” she replied as she stepped forward to kiss him gently. “And then go from there.”

Afterwards, they lay together, catching their breath. Elsa drew the sheets closer to her neck.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That was probably anti-climactic for you.”

“What?” He wheezed. “No. It was – it was whatever the exact opposite of ‘anti-climactic’ is. Very climactic? I dunno. I don’t know what the word is.” He reached out to stroke his cheek. “That was wonderful. You’re wonderful, _alskling_. Thank you for that.”

“I’m just not very experienced-“

“Elsa, you’re amazing.”

She smiled at his reassurance. “So next time-“

“Next time?” He sounded so delighted she laughed.

“Yes, _next time_ do you want to do anything differently?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, rose petals?” He snorted. She grinned. “Maybe I wear something sexier than your old Mathletes shirt?”

“Are you kidding?” He propped himself up on his elbow. “The Mathletes shirt only made it hotter. My eighteen-year-old self would be so stoked to know what the future holds for him.” They laughed. “Seriously, I wouldn’t change anything. However you want this to continue is fine by me. It was great. You’re great. This is great.”

“Well, I guess if I ever want you to get me pizza, I know your price.”

“There are other take-out options, you know. Chinese. Thai. Halal. Falafel. That vegan food cart you love.” She laughed and gently smacked his shoulder as he laughed. “I’ll get them all! Whatever you want.”

“Oh? Well, how about we have that wine now?”

“Anything for you, alskling.”


End file.
